University of Oxford

(formerly: Centre for the Advanced Study of European and Comparative Law)
 

ANNUAL REPORT

Academic Year 2000-2001
 
 

1.  Introduction

2. Course 2: Law with Law Studies in Europe

3. Visiting Scholars and Institutional Links

•      France
•      Italy
•      Spain
•      Germany
•      Netherlands
•      Scandinavia
•      The Europaeum

4. Lawson Commemoration

5. Other Events, 2000-2001

6. Comparative Integration Studies

7. The Institute Website

8. Staff Activities

APPENDICES

Appendix A: The Founders of the Institute
Appendix B: Members of the Advisry Council
Appendix C: The Financial Supporters of the Institute
Appendix D: The Friends of the Institute
Appendix E: Staff and Honorary Fellows

We are enormously proud of what the Institute of European and Comparative Law has achieved since it was established in 1995. The Institute has contributed much to enhancing the European dimension of the Law Faculty’s teaching and research activities. The Institute’s staff has devoted energy and enthusiasm to ensuring that the links established with other major European institutions be strengthened and, in particular, that the value to the Oxford student body of exposure to visitors from other legal jurisdictions in Europe be fully recognised and exploited. The Institute has re-doubled its efforts to host intellectually significant lectures, seminars and conferences, thereby to enhance further the reputation of Oxford as a leading member of the family of European Law Schools.

Following the resignation of Professor Markesinis, the first Director, in the summer of 2000 the determination of the Faculty to use the Institute as a vehicle for supplementing its excellence in common law scholarship with excellence in the field of European law (broadly understood) has, if anything, increased. My assumption of the Directorship in July 2000 was properly regarded as marking the commencement of a new stage in which the Institute’s profile in comparative private law has been maintained and developed and in which additional strengths in other areas of transnational law are being added to the Institute’s activities. We believe that there is value in drawing more members of the Law Faculty into the work of the Institute, and we believe that there is benefit to be gained from fostering closer associations with other Departments and Faculties in Oxford that boast international excellence in the field of European studies (in particular Politics and International Relations). The Institute’s profile is growing and with it grows its sense of ambition. This Annual Report reveals the rich diversity of activity undertaken within the Institute in the academic year 2000-2001 in pursuit of the improvement of research and teaching in European and comparative law in Oxford. It also sets out a vision of fresh initiatives continuing into the future. The Directorship of the Institute will pass to Professor Mark Freedland in October 2001, and the firm intention of all those associated with the Institute is that we will increase the number of individuals actively involved in planning the projects to be undertaken by the Institute, thereby to enrich further the breadth and depth of our activities in the fields of European and comparative law.

As we look forward with eager anticipation to the flourishing of the Institute’s activities in ever wider fields, it is certainly appropriate to pause to pay tribute to the contribution of the founding Director of the Institute, who has now left Oxford. Professor Basil Markesinis, Clifford Chance Professor of Comparative Law and a Fellow of, first, Lady Margaret Hall and latterly Brasenose, resigned his Chair with effect from the end of 2000. He also resigned the Directorship of the Institute of European and Comparative Law with effect from the summer of 2000. In the five years of his sojourn in the Faculty, Professor Markesinis made significant contributions to the Faculty in general through his teaching and writing but it is in connection with the Institute of European and Comparative Law in particular that his remarkable talents were displayed to their best effect. Devoting energy and imagination to the task of securing support for this new endeavour in the Faculty, Professor Markesinis was able to attract distinguished scholars from other jurisdictions in Europe to visit Oxford and to make valued contributions to the teaching and research culture of the Faculty. In this sense the Institute became a key player in developing the "Europeanisation" of the Law Faculty’s profile. The finest tribute that can be paid to the pioneering efforts of Professor Markesinis in the Oxford Faculty is to ensure that the foundation that he has built for the enhancement of a European dimension to the Faculty’s research and teaching activities is treated as no more than a starting point. It is the fulfilment of that ambition that is the subject matter of this Annual Report - and (it is our firm intention) that of many Annual Reports to come in the future.

I would like to conclude by paying a personal tribute to Lord Goff, the Chairman of our Advisory Council. His thoughtful advice and words of encouragement were of infinitely more value than he will ever know in helping me to take the work of the Institute forward. We have another attractive list of visitors and events planned for 2001-2002 and I am able to assure you of my optimism about the future prosperity and growth of the Institute.

Stephen Weatherill

Director
 
 

Supporters of the Institute will know of the Law Faculty’s 4-year course ("Law with Law Studies in Europe") in which a year abroad at a European university is intercalated between the second and final years of the 3-year BA programme. The Institute has increasingly become a focus for the students on the 4-year course, and this is being stepped up from summer 2001 when the running of the course will be transferred to the Institute. Jenny Dix, the Institute’s new Administrator, will be taking over the day-to-day administration of the course, and John Cartwright will continue as the Faculty’s Academic Coordinator of the course but now working within the management team of the Institute.

From small beginnings (with fifteen students going to four partner universities in 1994) the course has already grown to a regular annual intake of thirty students going to seven Universities in four countries: to study French law at the University of Paris II (Panthéon-Assas); German law at the Universities of Bonn, Konstanz, Munich or Regensburg; Italian law at the University of Siena; and European law at the University of Leiden. This programme is one of the Faculty’s great successes of the last decade - a success in the view not only of the Faculty but also of the students themselves.

Many of the students who have been abroad speak of the opportunity from which they have benefited. Whether they are studying French, German, Italian or European law, it broadens their legal horizons and gives an extra dimension to their work which they bring back to their study for the final year in Oxford. And not only do they spend an academic year in a European country: they also experience a whole new system of learning. As one student told us when she returned for her final year in Oxford last October,

Before they go abroad to Paris, Germany or Siena our students receive preparatory teaching in French, German and Italian law at the Institute, by both its regular staff and overseas visitors. The Institute has both German and French Deputy Directors who lead the teaching. The German Deputy Director is Dr Stefan Enchelmaier, funded by the DAAD. The French Deputy Director is a Professor on secondment from either the University of Paris I (Panthéon-Sorbonne) or Paris II (Panthéon-Assas) and funded by the French Government: currently Professor Otto Pfersmann from Paris I is with us for two years. And other regular staff of the Institute or the Faculty are involved in the teaching: Dr Gerhard Dannemann, Fellow of Worcester College and Erich Brost Lecturer in German Civil and Commercial Law teaches German law; Mrs Marina Milmo, who is both a French avocat and an English solicitor, teaches French law; and Nello Pasquini, who practises both Italian and English law, teaches Italian Law. The students also receive language tuition to prepare them for their year abroad: French and Italian language teaching is arranged through the University’s Language Centre, but we have German language teaching available within the Institute of European and Comparative Law from Dr Stefan Busch, Fellow of Lincoln College and also funded by DAAD. The Faculty has received very generous support from Clifford Chance and from Linklaters to enable it to take these initiatives, and the students themselves benefit directly from these two firms in receiving grants to help them meet the costs of the year abroad.

A sign of the continuing strength of the exchange and the links it helps to create is the students’ own enthusiasm for it, not only as part of their course, but in their desire to maintain and build upon the contacts they made abroad. The largest single group of exchange students is the Paris group: and they have established an association of both the Oxford students and their Paris exchange counterparts, the Oxford-Assas French Law Society ("Assox"), which not only offers a focus and support for students during their year’s exchange, but also provides a link between the students after their graduation. Assox keeps records of all those on the Oxford/Paris exchange and the current officers of the Society are hoping to publish a directory of its members to provide the means of keeping in touch. The continuing link with Oxford after graduation is not confined to the French exchange. A consequence of the exchange programme, as a significant part of the recent increase in the number of European students taking courses in Law at Oxford, is that we are now building up a solid core of European students who have experienced the Oxford system and who have become staunch Oxford supporters.

Our students’ participation in the course often helps them in their careers: not only those who go into practice (and are particularly sought-after by firms and chambers who value students with the extra European dimension and experience) but also those who undertake advanced academic work in European or comparative law. One early participant from Oxford in the exchange with Leiden, Andrew Skudder, is now a research fellow at Leiden University and teaches our own exchange students European Competition Law during their year in Leiden. And another former participant in the German exchange, Oliver Radley-Gardner, is now back in Oxford as a lecturer at Pembroke and Somerville Colleges, and has been involved in the teaching of the preparatory German law course in the Faculty.

In introducing the 4-year course the Faculty was meeting a real and growing need. The number taking the course has already doubled over its first early years and every year it is heavily oversubscribed: in the last admissions round we received more than 200 applications for the 30 places, and a significant number of good candidates whom colleges would have wished to admit for the 4-year course could only be offered places for the 3-year course. The Faculty keeps the course under constant review, and may in due course extend it further - but there would be both practical and financial difficulties in a rapid expansion, and at the moment it is concentrating on consolidating and strengthening the existing links we have established with our partner European universities. In this the Institute of European and Comparative Law will continue to play a leading role.

In December 2000 a social event was held on the Institute premises to which all students associated with "Course 2", from all participating institutions (i.e. those in Oxford for a year from Paris, Siena, Leiden, Regensburg, Bonn, Munich and Konstanz, and those Oxford students who have spent or will spend a year abroad) were invited. Dr Stefan Enchelmaier took primary organisational responsibility. We envisage that this will become a regular feature of Institute life.
 
 

It is important to the Institute’s ambitions that we should exploit our links with other Law Schools in continental Europe by seeking to attract eminent jurists to visit Oxford and then conscientiously to secure the integration of these individuals into the teaching and research life of the Faculty. This has been a feature of the academic year 2000-2001, as it has been of previous years, and we already have an attractive slate of visitors planned for 2001-2002. Moreover, our geographical horizons are becoming still broader.
 

(i) France

Professor Otto Pfersmann, an Austrian by birth and currently the holder of a Chair in the University of Paris I (Sorbonne), has fulfilled the role of Deputy Director for French law in the Institute with admirable flair and dedication in the academic year under review. Professor Pfersmann, whose activities are listed more fully later in this report, has been actively engaged in the teaching of undergraduate students while also involving himself in teaching public law on the BCL/M.Jur. programme, and he has also played a full part in helping to shape the Institute’s research agenda.

By virtue of funding generously supplied by the French Government, Professor Jacqueline Dutheil de la Rochere of the University of Paris II visited us once again in Hilary Term 2001. Professor Dutheil de la Rochere delivered a course of lectures to undergraduate students in the field of EU fundamental rights. So successful were these classes that an extra lecture was added to the programme "by popular demand"! We are delighted to report that Professor Dutheil de la Rochere will visit the Institute once again in 2001/2002.

The Association Oxford-Sorbonne was established in 1999 with the generous support of Clifford Chance’s Paris Office. The primary purpose of the Association is to enable Oxford Faculty members to visit Paris and to participate in teaching at the Sorbonne. In 2000 John Cartwright visited Paris. We are ambitious to extend the scheme to include conferences and seminars, both of a type close to the academic/practitioner cusp that would be suitable for participation by all three parties, and also of a more overtly academic type.
 
 

(ii) Italy

Our link with the University of Siena is underpinned by financing provided by the Italian government and also by the leading London firm of solicitors, Linklaters and Alliance. Part of the money is allocated to Lincoln College, which has a particularly close association with our Italian visitors. This money has supported the teaching of Italian law in the Faculty. It has also funded visits by Siena’s Vice-Rector and Professor of Public International Law, Francesco Francioni, to Oxford to participate in teaching at taught postgraduate level. Both Professor Francioni and the Rector of Siena University, Professor Pietro Tosi, visited Oxford in October 2000 and, at a meeting of the two Italian visitors, the Vice Chancellor, the Chair of the Law Board and the current Director of the Institute, we were able to confirm our mutual interest in maintaining the strength of the link. This was also the message we were able to convey to Siena in December 2000 when Professor Weatherill and Ms Redgwell visited the Siena Faculty at Professor Francioni’s invitation to deliver a lecture each and to discuss the future of our link. Professor Francioni will continue to visit Oxford to teach into the future, and we were delighted to welcome him to Oxford to teach at postgraduate level in weeks 5-8 of Hilary Term 2001. Our discussions have led to the agreement that we should seek to extend the link to permit visits to Oxford by younger members of the Siena Faculty. Dr Alessandro Masi will visit Oxford in Michaelmas Term 2001, while Dr Irene Mecatti was in Oxford in Trinity Term 2001. This conforms to the new priority to use the Institute as a vehicle for attracting young, "up and coming" academics to visit Oxford, thereby storing up goodwill for the future benefit of our institution. This, of course, by no means excludes visits by more established names. Professor Giovanni Grottanelli de’Santi, a specialist in private law and Professor of Law at the University of Siena, was a visitor in the Institute in Michaelmas Term 2000.

Professor Vincenzo Zeno-Zencovich, Professor of Law at the University of Rome III, was the Linklaters Senior Visiting Fellow in Hilary Term 2001. In accordance with our ambition to ensure that students spending time in another EU Member State as part of the Oxford four-year "Course 2" BA degree programme are well versed in the law and language of the country they visit before they leave Oxford, thereby to maximise the benefits they enjoy when they are abroad, we ensure that experts are available in Oxford to provide relevant teaching. Professor Zeno-Zencovich fulfilled this role admirably on the Italian side, and we are enormously grateful to him, as we also are to Linklaters for supplying the funds to allow him to visit Oxford to teach in the Institute. In March 2001 Professor Zeno-Zencovich led a seminar on aspects of his work on the developing law of privacy, which was attended by staff and postgraduate students.

In 2001-2002 Professor Giulio Tremonti of the University of Pavia has accepted the invitation to become the Linklaters Senior Visiting Fellow and he will accordingly visit the Institute in Hilary Term.

In shaping our Italian programme, we remain deeply in the debt of Mr Nello Pasquini, whose service as Teaching Fellow in the Institute has been marked by extraordinary enthusiasm and imagination. The Director is delighted to place on record his gratitude to Mr Pasquini for his splendid efforts.
 

(iii) Spain

During the summer of 2000, the Institute hosted three visitors from Spain: Professor José Martin y Pérez de Nanclarez from the University of Rioja; and Professor Joan David Janer Torrens and Professor Francesca Llodrà Grimalt, both from the University of the Balearic Islands. In Michaelmas Term 2001 we will welcome the first Professor from Spain to act as a Visiting Fellow in the Institute. Professor Joxerramon Bengoetxea, based at the University of the Basque Country, is a noted specialist in European law and theory and a former referendaire at the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg. He will be involved particularly in shaping a programme of research that is designed to bring together the Faculty’s European lawyers and the legal theorists, while also playing a valuable part in the teaching of European law. We are again very grateful to Linklaters and Alliance, Solicitors for providing the funding to underpin this visit and we are also excited by the Institute’s new geographical dimension as we venture for the first time onto the Iberian peninsula.
 

(iv) Germany

Dr Stefan Enchelmaier, a European Community Law specialist, served his fourth year as the Deputy Director for German Law in 2000-2001 and once again his commitment to teaching ensured that the Institute played a major role in the provision of high-quality undergraduate teaching in European law and German law to the Faculty. The DAAD (Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst) provides support for Dr Enchelmaier’s post, and we are most grateful to DAAD for helping us to secure such a prominent position for the teaching of German law in our Faculty. Dr Gerhard Dannemann, a comparative private lawyer, holds the position of Erich Brost University Lecturer in German Civil and Commercial Law. Warm gratitude is due to Dr Erich Schumann and Anneliese Brost for the financial support for this position, and to the Stiftverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft for handling this financial support. Dr Dannemann has played and continues to play an active part in teaching, especially at postgraduate level. Profiles of both colleagues may be found later in this report. Both Dr Enchelmaier and Dr Dannemann are closely involved in the development of the Institute’s overall strategy for both research and teaching.

Professor Peter Schlosser, an expert in civil procedure and Professor of Law at the University of Munich, visited the Institute during Michaelmas Term 2000. He was particularly engaged in research into the nature of undertakings as to future conduct given by individuals before courts, a procedure which has no direct counterpart in German law. The work pursued in Oxford was published in the journal, Recht der Internationalen Wirtschaft (2/2001, pp.81-93), under the title "Common Law Undertakings aus deutscher Sicht". Our link with Munich is particularly healthy and operates both at the level of student mobility (Munich is one of the destinations of choice for our undergraduate students enrolled on the four-year "Course 2" programme, while Munich-educated students are "regulars" on our Faculty Magister Juris programme) and staff exchange. Both Professor Andreas Heldrich, Rector of the University of Munich, and Professor Dagmar Coester-Waltjen, who directs the Institute for Comparative Law in Munich, have confirmed that the link with Oxford, supported by money provided by the Bavarian government, is held in very high esteem and this feeling of warm regard is certainly reciprocated in Oxford. Professor Josef Drexl of the Munich Faculty will visit Oxford in Michaelmas Term 2001 and will participate in undergraduate and postgraduate teaching in European Law, while Dr Gerald Mäsch, the beneficiary of a Marie-Curie research award, spent most of Michaelmas Term 2000 and Hilary Term 2001 pursuing research into comparative private law in the Institute. Dr Mäsch will return to pursue further academic investigation in 2001-2002. From the Oxford side of the link, Professor Markesinis visited Munich for a month in 1998, Professor Weatherill spent July 1999 in Munich, Professor Markesinis visited again in 2000 and Dr Michael Spence will visit Munich late in 2001.

The Heather Grierson Visiting Professorship was filled by Professor Peter Schlechtriem, of the University of Freiburg, who visited Oxford in Hilary Term 2001. Professor Schlechtriem participated in postgraduate BCL/M.Jur. seminars on the courses in Transnational Commercial Law (at the invitation of Sir Roy Goode) and Problem Areas in the Law of Contract and Tort (at the invitation of Dr Gerhard Dannemann). In this context, he gave three lectures on "Development of the Law of Obligations in Europe: Toward Common Principles and Structures", on "Unjust Factors" and on "Privacy". The last lecture was published under the title "Privacy, Publicity and Restitution of Wrongful Gains: Another New Economy?" in (2001) Oxford University Comparative Law Forum 3 at ouclf.iuscomp.org. Professor Schlechtriem also dedicated time in Oxford to the completion of the second volume of his major work on the Law of Restitution.

Dr Nina Lemmens, Director of DAAD’s office in London and a member of the Institute’s Advisory Council, has visited Oxford during the year and we were very pleased to show her the Institute’s premises and the impressive holdings of German legal material in the Bodleian Law Library. We are greatly encouraged that DAAD has expressed continuing support for our determination in the Institute of European and Comparative Law to sustain awareness of the importance of teaching and researching German law in this country.
 

(v) The Netherlands

Our valued connection with the Law Faculty of the University of Leiden endures, not least in the shape of Professor Marcel Brus of Leiden who once again visited Oxford during this academic year in his guise as Senior Teaching Fellow in the Institute. Professor Brus, who holds an association with Lincoln College, is an expert in particular in international environmental law and participated in the teaching of that increasingly popular subject at postgraduate level.

Several members of the Faculty enjoyed the opportunity to visit Leiden in May 2001 in an event organised from Oxford by the Institute and focussing on the legal regulation of e-commerce. This is the subject of fuller explanation below in the section entitled "The Europaeum", for that entity provided generous financial support for the visit.

The "Dutch connection" is also underpinned by the fact that Leiden is the destination for those undergraduate students on the "Course 2" BA degree programme who make the Netherlands their choice for the EU Member State in which they will study in the third of their four years.
 

(vi) Scandinavia

Dr Mads Andenas, Director of the British Institute of International and Comparative Law, was appointed Senior Teaching Fellow in the Institute in January 2000. He is also associated with Harris Manchester College. His Fellowship in the Institute is generously supported by the Andbell Trust, which has a Norwegian background. Dr Andenas will be delivering lectures on EC law to undergraduate and postgraduate students in Michaelmas Term 2001. Both Dr Andenas and Professor Weatherill hope to build closer, mutually beneficial links between the IECL in Oxford and the BIICL in London. This is especially promising in the areas of transnational law in which both Institutes have strengths.

The Scandinavian dimension of the Institute’s work, already taking shape as a result of the support of the Andbell Trust for the post held by Dr Andenas, has been taken further as a result of the conclusion of an agreement between the Institute and the Law Faculty of the University of Stockholm, represented by Professor Ulf Bernitz. The objective of the parties to this Agreement is to deepen collaboration between the Universities of Stockholm and Oxford with a view to achieving mutually beneficial improvement in the fruits of intellectual endeavour. A substantial six-figure grant from the Wallenberg Foundation will provide financial underpinning for the link, which is to cover a three-year period in the first instance. The plan is to allow Professor Bernitz to spend time in Oxford, to attract Scandinavian doctoral and postdoctoral researchers to pursue study in Oxford and to plan research projects and conferences, particularly in areas of interest that are common to Scandinavian and British jurists, but also in wider areas of European law, transnational law and international economic law. Professor Bernitz has been elected to a Visiting Professorship by Balliol College.

As with Spain, so with Scandinavia: the Institute is currently taking vigorous strides in the direction of a pan-European network of institutional connections.
 
 

The "Europaeum" is the title taken by a group of ambitious leading European Universities dedicated to deepening cross-border collaborative research. The members are Oxford, Bonn, Leiden, Bologna, Geneva, Paris I and Prague. The Institute of European and Comparative Law has not pursued close links with the Europaeum in the past but this is changing, and very much for the better. In October 2000 Professor Weatherill met with Professor Marquand and Dr Flather of the Europaeum and concluded that we have ambitions in common. Professor Weatherill has accepted an invitation to sit on the Oxford Europaeum Group and is confident that this will provide a vehicle for building more cross-border and cross-disciplinary contacts that will be capable of exploitation by the Institute’s staff. Moreover, an application prepared by Professor Weatherill for a substantial sum of money to be released to the Institute from the University’s European Studies Fund was approved by the Vice Chancellor in January 2001. The money is to be used in connection with Europaeum-related activities.

This association has already proved fruitful. In May a team from the Oxford Law Faculty visited the Law Faculty of the University of Leiden for a two-day joint seminar in which we examined legal aspects of electronic commerce. This event was the subject of generous financial support from the "Europaeum" and was organised on the Oxford side from the Institute of European and Comparative Law. It was a particular pleasure that the event brought together Oxford and Leiden, for our Faculties are old friends and while the visit secured renewal of existing connections it also provided an opportunity to plan ahead for the construction of a new platform for joint intellectual endeavour. The coordinator on the Leiden side was Professor Henk Snijders, for whose prodigious efforts of organisation we were profoundly grateful, and we were also delighted to see again a long-standing friend of the Oxford Faculty, Professor Hein Schermers. The fast-moving field of e-commerce proved an exciting arena in which to discuss questions of legal regulation and participants from both Oxford and Leiden prepared stimulating papers. The seminar, after commencing with exploration of the technological, political and social challenges presented by the burgeoning e-commerce sector, included discussion of matters such as regulation by the European Community, applicable rules of contract law, the problem of digital signatures, intellectual property, private international law and the potential liability of third parties, such as hosts and conduits. The theme of the seminar was an inquiry into the extent to which the law can content itself with an expectation that what holds good "off-line" also applies "on-line". For all the technological wizardry of the Internet, our general conclusion was that existing legal rules are in general apt adequately to address the issues that are raised by the advance of electronic commerce, although much food for thought was set out on the table in our discussions. The Oxford team that enjoyed the warm hospitality of the Leiden Law Faculty was Stephen Weatherill (Somerville), Stefaan Verhulst (Centre for Socio-Legal Studies), Paul Craig (St John’s), Sally Ball (Trinity), Bronwen Morgan (St Hilda’s), Joshua Holmes (New), Gerhard Dannemann (Worcester), Roderick Bagshaw (Mansfield), Michael Spence (St Catherine’s) and Robert Stevens (Lady Margaret Hall).
 
 

On 8th March 2001 the Institute was delighted to host an event commemorating the achievements of the late Professor F.H. ("Harry") Lawson, formerly Professor of Comparative Law in the University, and, in fact, the first occupant of that distinguished Chair. Friends and admirers of the work of Professor Lawson gathered to pay tribute to his influence and also to celebrate his inspiring role as a scholar willing and able to encourage others to make the best of their abilities. A short speech was delivered by Professor Weatherill, as Director of the Institute, then by Professor Bernard Rudden, the Professor of Comparative Law until his retirement in 1999 who was able to tell of his doctoral examination at the hands of Professor Lawson. Professor Barry Nicholas shared with the audience some of his memories of Harry Lawson, and last and in many ways most important of all, Professor Lawson's two daughters, Susan Berl and Isabel Raphael, gave a family perspective on Harry. It was an especial delight that all three of Professor Lawson's children (Isabel, Susan and his son Bill Lawson) were able to be present, thereby ensuring that we were able to celebrate not just the scholarship but also the man himself. As a consequence of this event, a permanent exhibition is now on show in the Institute's premises, comprising Professor Lawson's honorary degrees and other insignia. We are enormously grateful to his family for donating these items and it is a matter of great pride to the Institute that we are able to honour Professor Lawson in this way and thereby to provide a vivid demonstration of our commitment to build a successful future by cherishing the foundation provided by the Oxford Law Faculty's splendid past.
 
 

The Institute has been directly responsible for a gratifyingly large number of events in the academic year 2000-2001 that have done much to enrich the academic life of those scholars who are formally involved with the Institute and also that have contributed greatly to the quality of the intellectual environment provided by the Oxford Law Faculty.

In February 2001 Professor Takis Tridimas of the University of Southampton delivered an excellent lecture on the horizontal and incidental direct effect of EC Directives, an area that has been the subject of a number of complex decisions of the European Court of Justice in recent times. This lecture was delivered in the Old Library of Wadham College and attracted an audience of more than 60 people, drawn from among the Faculty’s teaching staff, postgraduate students and (in the majority) undergraduate students. The event was financially supported by the Gildesgame Trust, which is available to the Institute to promote scholarly activities in the European law field.

In March 2001, Professor Vincenzo Zeno-Zencovich of the University of Rome Tre and a Linklaters Visiting Fellow in the Institute, led a seminar on legal questions associated with privacy, with particular reference to relevant European Community Directives that have lately been adopted in the field and to the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, proclaimed in December 2000. The splendours of an Oxford Spring ensured the seminar took place to the sound of sleet beating the windows of the St Cross Building, but an interesting and lively discussion was provoked by Professor Zeno-Zencovich’s presentation.

On 6^th March 2001 the Institute staged an ambitious full day event examining the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, which was agreed in December 2000 as a (formally) non-binding instrument but which is nevertheless likely to exert considerable indirect legal effect as a basis for interpretation of legal texts while also providing a possible basis for the elaboration of a constitutionally "harder" document that may provide a foundation for a future European Constitution (for good or ill, depending on taste). The event, staged in Somerville College, featured contributions by an Oxford team of professors, Paul Craig, Sandra Fredman and Christopher McCrudden, and this was matched by interventions from friends of the Institute, Professor Jacqueline Dutheil de la Rochere (Paris II), Professor Meinhard Hilf (Hamburg) and Professor Rainer Arnold (Regensburg). The emphasis of the event was on an exchange of ideas and perspectives, rather than on more formal, set-piece lectures, and the unanimous view of all involved was that in this sense it was a very considerable success. An audience of some 60, many of whom travelled from outside Oxford to be present, contributed actively to the debate initiated by our panel of six eminent speakers and the opportunity was taken to consider the nature of the drafting process that led to the Charter, the content of the Charter and its likely legal and political effect and the future direction of European integration suggested by the emphasis on the protection of fundamental rights that animates the Charter. The intellectual quality of the discussion was truly inspiring.

In May 2001 Mattias Kumm, a German national who is currently a Professor at New York University’s School of Law, led a seminar in which he set the scene for discussion of his current research into the relationship between European Community law and the constitutional law of the EU’s Member States, as perceived from the different perspectives of the Luxembourg court and the senior national courts. A healthy attendance was testimony to the topicality of this issue and an illuminating debate enlivened an enjoyable lunchtime.

In Hilary Term 2001 the central component of Professor Weatherill’s desire to strengthen the interdisciplinary profile of the Institute’s work comprised a seminar series promoted jointly by the Institute of European and Comparative Law in association with the Centre for European Politics, Economics and Society. The seminar series was entitled "Thinking about Europe", and a seminar was held each Monday lunchtime in Hilary Term from weeks two to eight (inclusive), with the generous financial support of Linklaters. The conveners were Anand Menon (Social Studies), Kalypso Nicolaidis (Social Studies) and Stephen Weatherill, and the ambition was to devise a truly interdisciplinary programme of general interest to those working in the field of European studies. This was duly achieved and the seminar series proceeded according to the following schedule:

Professor Weatherill is ambitious to develop research work within the Institute in the general field of "comparative integration studies", though, to be perfectly clear, this strategy is planned without in any way surrendering or even reducing the Institute’s core commitment to the importance of comparative private law. The strategy of adding work in the field of "comparative integration studies" to the Institute’s portfolio was endorsed at the meeting of the Institute’s Advisory Council held under the Chairmanship of Lord Goff in London in November 2000. Briefly, "comparative integration studies" are directed at exploring the extent to which the European Community/European Union is increasingly being taken as a potential model for the growth of other systems of regional economic integration based on Treaties such as NAFTA, Mercosul, and, even more geographically ambitious, the WTO and the evolving international economic legal order. It is also concerned with interrogating the extent to which the EC/EU should serve as a model. Plainly the EC is more institutionally and constitutionally sophisticated than these other blocs and its ambitions have always transcended economic aspirations alone and this is a reason for exercising caution in deploying EC analogies in the context of other systems of integration, though by no means a basis for excluding such analogies altogether. This field of research is extraordinarily rich. It speaks of overlapping sources of legal authority in the regulation of transnational trade. This is the challenge suggested by Comparative Integration Studies and it is of central relevance to not only academics but also practitioners operating in the field of transnational trade.

But there is a further dimension to this research programme. It is not simply a matter of comparing the EC with other models of regional cooperation that are (as yet) less constitutionally and institutionally complex. There is also considerable appeal in comparing the trajectory of the EU’s evolution with systems that have already developed into entities that are more constitutionally and institutionally sophisticated than is the EU - for example, the United States of America. This is not at all to suggest that the process of European integration should be capable of description in terms which match the march of more than two hundred years of American federalism. Still less it is to present a naif argument that the States of Europe should do what the (United) States of America already have done. Comparative work demands much greater subtlety, but there is a very rich area of scholarly investigation available to researchers who appreciate that problems of allocating power and responsibility to different levels of governance in modern economic conditions which dictate inevitable interdependence between States (even the strongest States!) are problems that deserve to be assessed with awareness that they recur in different but plausibly comparable contexts all over the world.

We are optimistic that established connections between the Oxford Law Faculty and the Law School at New York University can be used to develop this research agenda. Our exciting Scandinavian connections are also likely to generate work in these fields; so too, we hope, the opportunities afforded by association with the "Europaeum". Planning seminars and conferences dealing with aspects of comparative integration studies is envisaged as long-term commitment by the Institute and we would welcome approaches from scholars working in these realms.
 
 

The official website of the Institute of European and Comparative Law is published at http://iuscomp.org/iecl. This website is intended to inform the public about the activities of the Institute, its staff, teaching, contact information, etc. Dr Gerhard Dannemann continues to act as the webmaster of the Institute website. The Institute would like to thank Christian Denning for continuing to serve as the unpaid system administrator for the iuscomp.org server, which hosts the official website of the Institute, the German Law Archive, and also the Oxford University Comparative Law Forum.
 

Dr Gerhard Dannemann

(a) The German Law Archive

The German Law Archive is dedicated to publishing materials and bibliographies on German law in English language (http://iuscomp.org/gla). Currently, some 40 judgments, 40 statutes, 10 articles and introductions, as well as 3 bibliographies (2 text based, one database) are published in the German Law Archive, which, if published as a book, would fill some 2,500 pages. During the last year, 85,000 visitors (including 35,000 on the homepage) placed about 500,000 requests for information.

The German Law Archive was founded and is edited by Dr Gerhard Dannemann. The German law firm CMS Hasche Sigle Eschenlohr Peltzer Schäfer continues to provide the generous support needed to meet the costs for an Assistant Editor (Lawrence Schäfer, Wadham College) and a Database Editor (Konrad Rusch, formerly Merton College). The further expansion of the German Law Archive during 2001 was made possible through the kind support of several German Federal Ministries, the Bundesbank, and the continuous support of Dr Rainer Dobbelstein, Head of the Legal and Consular Department at the German Embassy, London. For the year 2001, the German Law Archive has also attracted the generous support of the Zeit-Stiftung Ebelin und Gerd Bucerius.

(b) Oxford University Comparative Law Forum

The Oxford University Comparative Law Forum went on-line during October 2000 (http://ouclf.iuscomp.org). The forum publishes academic writing on comparative law and runs a discussion forum for each article which is published. It currently attracts some 50 visitors per day and 250 requests for information. It also runs a free subscription service via e-mail.

The Forum was founded by Dr Gerhard Dannemann, who also acts as General Editor, assisted by an Editorial Board which includes Professor Peter Birks, Professor Mark Freedland, Dr Michael Spence, Dr Simon Whittaker and Dr Lucia Zedner. Lawrence Schäfer is Assistant Editor of the Forum, a position which is generously supported by CMS Hasche Sigle Eschenlohr Peltzer Schäfer.

(c) Publications

Dr Dannemann taught the Problems in Contract and Tort BCL/M.Jur. course during 2000-2001, gave lectures for the Restitution BCL/M.Jur. course, taught the Introduction to German law course for first year students on the Law with Law Studies in Europe: German Law undergraduate course, and gave lectures on Statutory Drafting and Interpretation for the Introduction to Law undergraduate course.

(e) Lectures

Dr Dannemann gave a paper on "Unjust Enrichment by Transfer: Some Comparative Remarks" at a conference on "Restitution" hosted by the University of Texas at Austin during January 2001.

(f) Research

He has also continued to work on a book on "Accidental Discrimination and the Conflict of Laws".
 
 

Dr Stefan Enchelmaier

Dr Stefan Enchelmaier continues as Deputy Director for German Law in the Institute, and in Michaelmas Term 2000 took up a fellowship at Wadham College.

(a) Teaching

During the year, Dr Enchelmaier’s teaching activities have included: eight lectures on "The Substantive Law of the Common Market", four seminars on "European Competition Law", tutorials for 30 tutees in European Community law, and 24 seminars on "German Private and Constitutional Law".

(b) Publications

In the summer of 2000, Dr Enchelmaier was a visiting professor at the University of Texas at Austin, where he taught a course on European Community Law. In December 2000, he was invited by the British judges and Advocate General at the European Court of Justice to a staff seminar where he spoke about "Joint Dominance and EC Competition Law". In June 2001 he gave a lecture on "The Europeanisation of Competition Law and the UK Competition Act 1998" at the London School of Economics.
 

Professor Otto Pfersmann

During the academic year 2000-2001, his first year as Deputy Director at the IECL, Professor Pfersmann dedicated his activities to three main domains: fundamental rights, constitutional interpretation, jurisprudence and the theory of comparative law. The opportunity of researching and teaching in Oxford was extremely helpful in all respects and permitted him to finish certain papers and book contributions and to progress in the work of other projects. Co-operation with Paris and other universities (including Florence, Genoa, Padova, Salzburg, Jerusalem, Bielefeld) was central to these activities.

(a) Teaching

1. Seminar on "Comparative Administrative Law" (with Professor Paul Craig): this seminar focussed not only on the traditional topics of Administrative Law such as procedural irregularity, jurisdictional review, control of administrative discretion, damages liability, liability for fault, liability without fault, interim relief, locus standi and other conditions precedent for judicial review, but also included a section on the relevance of constitutional principles and fundamental rights in a strict sense, so that the evolution in the French system since 1958 could be clearly identified and related to recent evolutions in the United Kingdom and the European Union. We had the fortune to welcome Professor Louis Favoreu from the University of Aix-en-Provence for one session of the Seminar who had a discussion with Alec Stone on the function of the Constitutional Council in the French legal system.

Symposium on "Constraints in Legal Argumentation", Centre de Théorie du Droit, University Paris X and CNRS, Paris, October 2000

Lecture on "Constitutional Interpretation" at the University Institute, Florence, December 2000

"The Normativist Theory of the Rule of Law" and "An Alternative Originalist Approach to Legal Interpretation", Hebrew University, Jerusalem

"Migration of Constitutional Ideas", Annual Meeting of the American Association of Constitutional Law, Harvard University, Boston, USA, March 2001

"Is it still Possible to be a Positivist?", Cardozo Law School, New York

"La teoria delle regole implicite", Università di Genova, May 2001

"Contro il neo-realismo", Università di Padova

Die nomative Demokratie: Der Vorbehalt des Gesetzes und der Rechtsstaat", Universität Bielefeld

In September 2001 Professor Pfersmann will be in charge of the organisation of an International Seminar on Comparative Constitutional Justice which will have as its theme Constitutional Interpretation. The papers will be published.

(c) Publications

(a) Teaching

Professor Weatherill’s teaching has focussed on European Community law. He delivered a series of lectures on aspects of EC Consumer Law and Policy to the undergraduate class in Michaelmas Term, while at postgraduate level he has been heavily involved in teaching seminars on the European Business Regulation course, while also playing a part in the teaching of Competition Law. He continues to supervise a number of research students, at D.Phil., M.Phil. and Magister Juris level.

(b) Publications

In the summer of 2000 the Fifth Edition of Professor Weatherill’s Cases and Materials on EC Law was published by Blackstone Press (lxiv + 763 pp.). He has also contributed a number of papers to edited collections of essays published during the current academic year, among them:

Professor Weatherill has travelled extensively during the year and has delivered an unusually high number of conference papers (not least in pursuit of raising the profile of the Institute!). These include:

The Institute's aims, described in this Report (and previous Reports), include the furthering of understanding between jurists of the European Continent and the eventual promotion of a more integrated European legal education. The Institute is apolitical; but its wider cultural aims have been appreciated and supported by a number of senior European politicians and judges, some of whom have played a very active part in helping us get off the ground. We are thus delighted to thank (in chronological order) Dr Klaus Kinkel, Federal Foreign Minister of Germany, who kindly inaugurated the Centre in 1996; Madame Noelle Lenoir, Membre du Conseil Constitutionnel, France; Mr François Fillon, Former Minister of Education of France; Mr Jacques Toubon, former Garde des Sceaux and Minister of Justice of France; Mr François Bayrou, former Minister of Education of France; Mr Joe Ritzen, former Minister of Higher Education of the Netherlands; and Mr Luigi Berlinguer, former Minister of Education and Research of Italy.

In this category of founders we also include those who, through generous donations, made the creation of our two key chairs possible thus launching the Institute on its successful path, namely the partners of Clifford Chance (for the establishment of the Clifford Chance Chair in European Law) and the European Parliament for agreeing to take on the major part of the expenditure for the creation of the Jacques Delors Chair in European Community Law. In this last context, the invaluable and untiring efforts of Sir John Kerr KCMG, at that time our Ambassador to Brussels, Mr James Elles, Member of the European Parliament, Lord Williamson, formerly Secretary General of the Commission, and Professor Sir Roy Goode are also gratefully acknowledged. As already stated, all of us at the Institute regard Dr Eric Schumann and his mother Frau Anneliese Brost as major benefactors of our institution as well as friends and were thus delighted with our University's decision to elect both to the Chancellor's Court of Benefactors. Their most recent gifts to assist our library efforts mark them out as loyal friends of this University but, more importantly, as pioneers in the Herculean effort we are making to establish German law as part of the Oxford legal curriculum. In this vein we must also mark with gratitude our debt to DAAD (Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst).

Chairman
The Rt. Hon. the Lord Goff of Chieveley PC, DCL, FBA
High Steward of Oxford

Professor Avv. Guido Alpa
University of Rome - "La Sapienza"

Professor Dr Christian von Bar
Director of the Institut für Internationales Privatrecht und Rechtsvergleichung, University of Osnabrück

Sir Franklin Berman KCMG, QC
Faculty of Law, University of Oxford

The Rt. Hon. the Lord Bingham of Cornhill PC, Hon.DCL (Oxon)
Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales

Professor Peter Birks QC, DCL, LL.D., FBA
Regius Professor of Civil Law, University of Oxford

Christopher Bright BCL
Shearman and Sterling, London

The Rt. Hon. the Lord Browne-Wilkinson
House of Lords

Keith Clark BCL
Senior Partner, Clifford Chance, London

The Conseiller Culturel
French Embassy, London

Professor Paul Craig FBA
Fellow of St John’s College, Oxford

Ross Cranston QC, MP, DCL
House of Commons

Eamon Doran
Linklaters and Alliance

Professor David Edward CMG, QC, LLD, FRSE
Judge of the Court of Justice of the European Communities

Professor Dr Francesco Francioni
Vice-Rector, University of Siena

Professor Dr Hans Franken
Dean of the Law Faculty, University of Leiden

Professor Mark Freedland
Fellow of St John’s College, Oxford

Professor Sir Roy Goode CBE, QC, FBA
Emeritus Professor of English Law

The Rt. Hon. the Lord Hoffman
House of Lords

Professor Francis Jacobs QC
Advocate-General at the Court of Justice of the European Communities

Dr Nina Lemmens
Director, German Academic Exchange

Madame Noëlle Lenoir
Judge of the Conseil Constitutionnel, France

Dr Colin Lucas
Vice-Chancellor, University of Oxford

Martin Matthews
Fellow of University College, Oxford

The Rt. Hon. the Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers
House of Lords

The Rt. Hon. the Lord Saville of Newdigate
House of Lords
 

The Institute also gratefully acknowledges financial support received from the following Governments, organisations, institutions, and individuals, listed here in alphabetical order.

Andbel AS, Norway

Anderson Foundation, Houston, Texas

Ian Arstall (formerly Linklaters & Alliance), World Group, Malta

Pauline Ashall, Linklaters & Alliance

Banca Monte dei Paschi, Siena

Banca di Roma

Christopher Bright (formerly Clifford Chance), Shearman and Sterling

Anneliese Brost

Casa di Risparmio di Genova e Imperia

Clifford Chance, London

Ferrier Charlton (now retired), Linklaters & Alliance

CMS Hasche Sigle Eschenlohr Peltzer Schäfer Attorneys, Stuttgart, Germany

Commerzbank A.G.

Christopher Coombe, Linklaters & Alliance

Deminex (UK) Ltd.

Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD), Bonn and London

Martin Elliott, Linklaters & Alliance

The Europaeum, University of Oxford

The European Parliament

The French Embassy, London

The French Government

The Gildesgame Trust

Diana Good, Linklaters & Alliance

Sir Ronald Grierson

Tony Grundy, Linklaters & Alliance

Michael Hardwick, Linklaters & Alliance

The Italian Government

Raymond Jeffers, Linklaters & Alliance

The Leiden Institute of Anglo-American Law, The Netherlands

The Leverhulme Trust

Guy Lewin Smith, Linklaters & Alliance

Linklaters & Alliance, London

Alexandra Marks, Linklaters & Alliance

Jane Murphy, Linklaters & Alliance

Harold Paisner, Paisner and Co.

Martin Paisner, Paisner and Co.

Nick Rees, Linklaters & Alliance

James Rice, Linklaters & Alliance

Dr Erich Schumann, Rechtsanwalt, Geschäftsführer, Der Zeitunsgruppe Waz, Essen

Von Caemmerer Stiftung

Nick Tarling, Freshfields

Stephen Turnbull, Linklaters & Alliance

Vivendi Plc.

The VSB Bank, The Netherlands

The Wallenberg Foundation, Sweden

Wertpapapier-Mitteilungen (the publishers, for kindly donating the journal)

Tom Wethered, Linklaters & Alliance

Philip Woode, Allen and Overy

Dr and Mrs Hans Günter Zempelin
 
 

The Institute is also grateful for the support it has received from the following individuals who, in different but equally valuable ways, have promoted its interests and assisted its fundraising efforts.

Professor Dr Dr h.c. Guido Alpa, Rome

Dr Leonhard Aulinger, Rechtsanwalt, Bochum, Germany

Professor Dr Christian von Bar, Osnabrück

Dr Brita Baron, former Director of the London Office of DAAD

Dr Christian Boode, General Secretary, DAAD, Bonn

Christopher Bright (formerly Clifford Chance), Shearman and Sterling

Trevor Brown, Senior Partner, Paris Office of Clifford Chance

Frank Burbach, Cultural Counsellor, German Embassy, London

Michael Butcher, Secretary of the Franco-British Lawyers Association

Dr Peter von Butler, Minister Plenipotentiary, German Embassy, London

Jeremy Carver, Partner, Clifford Chance

Keith Clark, Senior Partner, Clifford Chance

Julia Clarke, Partner, Clifford Chance

Professor Dr Diego Corapi, Rome

Professor Dr Fausto Cuocolo, President of Fondazione Carige, Genova

Jacques Dauvin, Attaché Culturel, French Embassy, London

Simon Davies, Partner, Clifford Chance

Dr Rainer Dobbelstein, Legal Affairs Counsellor, German Embassy, London

Jost van de Does de Willebois, Managing Partner, Clifford Chance, Amsterdam

Eamonn Doran, Partner, Linklaters and Alliance

Professor Dr Antonio Eitel, former Chief Legal Advisor, German Ministry for Foreign Affairs

James Elles, MEP

Professor Dr Manfred Erhardt

Myriam Ezratty-Bader, Ancien Premier Président de la Cour d’ Appel de Paris

Professor Etienne Fatôme, former Special Advisor to the French Ministry of Higher Education; Ordinarius Professor at the University of Panthéon-Sorbonne

Professor Francesco Francioni, Vice Rector of the University of Siena

Dr Christiane Ebel-Gabriel, Wissen-schaftliche Kommission Niedersachsen
 
 

H.E. Ambassador Dr Walter Gorenflos, former Inspector General, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Germany

Sheridan Gould, Director of the Fund-Raising Office of Lady Margaret Hall

Wilfried H. Graf, Commerzbank A.G., London

Professor Dr Andreas Heldrich, Rector of the University of Munich

Patrick Hubert, Chef de Cabinet, Garde des Sceaux, France

Professor Sam Issacharoff, Columbia University, New York

Charles Alan Jones, Senior Partner, Linklaters & Alliance

Martin Kohlhausen, Sprecher des Vorstandes Commerzbank A.G., Frankfurt am Main

John Ledlie, Linklaters & Alliance

Professor Dr Dr. h.c. Werner Lorenz, Munich

Professor Dr Dr h.c. Marcus Lutter, Member of the Chancellor's Court of Benefactors, Oxford (Bonn)

Marina Milmo

H.E. Count Gebhardt von Moltke, formerly Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany at the Court of St James

Nello Pasquini, Radcliffe's Solicitors

Chris Perrin, Partner, Clifford Chance

Olivier Poivre d'Arvor, former Cultural Counsellor, French Embassy, London

Albert Prevos, Director of the Ministry of High Education (French Culture), France

Dr Bernhard Scheifele, Munich Re., Munich

Dr Hermann Schimansky, Vorsitzender Richter am Bundesgerichtshof

The late Dr Albrecht Schneider, former Director, Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft, Essen

Professor Michael Sharlot, School of Law, University of Texas at Austin

Irene Snook

Dr Spiegel, Cultural Affairs Directorate, German Ministry of Foreign Affairs

The late Professor Dr Dr h.c. Ernst Stiefel, New York

Nick Tarling, formerly Partner of Freshfields.

Richard Thomas, Clifford Chance

Dr Wolfgang Trautwein, former Counsellor, Legal and Consular Affairs, German Embassy, London

Professor Dr Pierro Tosi, Rector of the University of Siena

Jean Claude Vatin, Director, Maison Française, Oxford

Lord Williamson, GCMG, former Secretary General of the European Commission, Brussels

Philip Woode, Partner, Allen and Overy

I. The Institute’s Core Staff

Director and Jacques Delors Chair in European Community Law

Deputy Director (French)

II. Honorary Fellows of the Institute

Professor Sir Roy Goode CBE, QC, FBA

For further information about the Institute please contact:

The Administrator

Institute of European and Comparative Law

St Cross Building

St Cross Road

Oxford OX1 3UL

Tel. +44 (0)1865 281610

Email: jenny.dix@eurocomplaw.ox.ac.uk

or

The Director: Professor Stephen Weatherill (until 30.09.2001)

Professor Mark Freedland (from 01.10.2001)

see also: http://www.iuscomp.org/iecl/